Kids Treated As Prisoners In Custody Disputes

January 24, 2001|By Kathleen Parker, Tribune Media Service.

Fourteen-year-old Clayton Giles sat on the Calgary courthouse steps Friday and ate a slice of pizza, thus ending a 19-day hunger strike designed to draw attention to children of divorce who feel victimized by an insensitive family-court system.

The Canadian boy's strike drew international attention and plenty of criticism from adults concerned that he was being used as much by immature adults (his parents) as he was victimized by unsatisfactory court orders. There are arguments to be made on both fronts.

There's also enough he-said-she-said rhetoric in this 10-year divorce-and-custody dispute to keep Mars and Venus in therapy for light years. But Clayton's parents both have had plenty of time to air their grievances. This space is dedicated to Clayton, in accordance with our "e-agreement." I told him I'd tell his story, but only when he started eating.

Herewith: Clayton began his strike on New Year's Day to protest his mother's refusal to grant full custody to his father, with whom he's lived the past year. Marnie Harrison, the mother, has her story; Eric Giles, the father, has his. Noted.

Without too much trouble, we can presume that both parents love their son, though allowing him to fast for 19 days is a funny way of showing it. Dad, who conducted his own hunger strike 30 years ago to protest a raw deal from a car dealership, says he didn't "allow" his son's hunger strike: "I advise Clayton. I don't order him. We made a promise to each other that if the doctor saw any sign of ill health, Clayton would quit immediately."

And so he did quit when protective services workers threatened to intervene. Clayton began eating carefully (except for the telegenic slice of pizza) with broths, soups and toast. By Sunday night, he was ready for the steak dinner he and his dad had looked forward to during the hungry days.

Mom, meanwhile, has agreed to let Clayton live with his father, but she is reluctant to release full custody for reasons anyone could understand. She doesn't want to lose all access to her son or her right to contribute to parenting decisions. Acknowledged.

Whatever one may feel about the boy's methods--or however skeptical one might be about dubious parental influences--no one can deny that the child has a point. Children are, indeed, daily victimized by courts and judges who treat children like chattel, awarding custody to one parent or the other, even though children still love, need and want both parents.

As Clayton pointed out on his Web site--legalkids.com--he's not interested in his parents' "irreconcilable differences." He's interested in having access to both his mom and dad, and he wonders why anyone thinks they can, or should, deprive him of either.

I wonder, too, as do most non-custodial parents. The very word "custody" suggests that children are prisoners rather than beloved offspring. Not coincidentally, hunger strikes began as an ancient form of protest among prisoners and were revived in the early 20th Century by women suffragists in Great Britain.

Clayton's strike may have offended adult sensibilities and enflamed parenting instincts, but his growling stomach provided a rallying cry to other children around the hemisphere who have clamored to visit his Web site and offer support.

Even as Clayton subsisted on fruit juices and water, a group of about 500 children gathered at the bell tower on the Capitol lawn in Richmond, Va., to pray and demonstrate for children who don't have two parents, as well as for those who are homeless or poor.

Though no longer physically hungry, Clayton hasn't sated his appetite for activism. In April, he's planning a walk/bike/in-line skate journey from Calgary to Ottawa and on to Washington, D.C., hoping to meet with Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien and President George W. Bush.

"This journey is dedicated to kids' right to access and our desire to be heard in any proceeding where decisions are made on our access to either parent," Clayton told me through our e-mail correspondence.

Though we might disagree on how, and to what extent, children should direct their own destinies (sometimes adults and courts know more about the divorcing parents than the children need to know), surely the pain of children's forced separation from half of their family can't be exaggerated.

In the United States, a country where one in two children will live in a single-parent home at some point in childhood--and where, each year, one in 60 sees his or her parents divorce--we need to make some accommodation for children's voices. Preferably, before they're compelled to starve themselves.